


Nightmarish

by Mottled_System



Category: Little Nightmares (Video Game), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Abuse, Anger, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Angst and Tragedy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Awkward Sexual Situations, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Betrayal, Bickering, Blood and Violence, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, Comfort/Angst, Coming of Age, Dark, Dark Fantasy, Dark Past, Discovery, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fantasizing, Fantasy, Fear of Discovery, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Friends to Enemies, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kink Discovery, Loss of Trust, Loss of Virginity, Masturbation, Murder, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, POV Ben Solo, POV Multiple, POV Rey, POV Rey (Star Wars), POV Third Person, POV Third Person Limited, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Past Torture, Past Violence, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Present Tense, Psychological Trauma, Rape Fantasy, Reunions, Revenge, Rey Needs A Hug (Star Wars), Romantic Fluff, Self-Discovery, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Content, Sexual Fantasy, Sexual Tension, Short Chapters, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Smut, Sneakiness, Sneaking, Sneaking Around, Suicidal Thoughts, Threats of Violence, Trauma, Trust, Trust Issues, Violence, Violent Thoughts, Virgin Ben Solo, Virgin Rey (Star Wars), Virginity, Young Ben Solo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:47:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29826558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mottled_System/pseuds/Mottled_System
Summary: Mono escaped the Tower. Alone, hurt, angry- he escaped.And he went home, and he found the relics of an unremembered life- and his name. Ben. The one his parents had given him long before the world had grown twisted and depraved.After Six left the Maw- overpowered and hungry and lost- she went looking... For what, she didn't know. Maybe another place like, somewhere that she could have her revenge on the twisted people that had fucked the world.What she finds, however, is Ben.And, whether they like it or not, they have to help another once again- older and wiser and meaner.CSA is not detailed/definitively stated but it did happen and is heavily implied.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey/Ben Solo, Mono & Six (Little Nightmares), Mono/Six (Little Nightmares), Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 11
Kudos: 43





	1. If He Can Survive It

There is no way to describe the visceral sound of a bloodied, well-used knife coming crashing down into the flesh and bone of some poor and unsuspecting, often living, thing. When it happens, Ben can’t even force himself to listen, to focus, to understand- it is sudden and wet and harsh and dry and mean and-

He flinches as the cleaver is dropped unceremoniously on the table, the metal giving a dull clunk against the thick, old wood. He hears the sounds of the wicked woman who had once, long ago, been his mother as she places the chunks of meat into a pot of stew.

Every time he sees a new person- whether they be far too young or far too old- he is paralyzed by a moment of dread and fear- not at the concept of some poor soul losing their life, as he had seen it far too many times to still feel the sorrow, the indignance, that he once had- but at the thought that it might be  _ her _ .

Ben yearns for her. He hates her. He loves her. He desperately wishes to know her name- not ‘Six’, as she was called, but her real name, her name before all this, her name long before Ben ever knew her. He needs to tell her his name- not ‘Mono’, but  _ Ben _ . His name is Ben.

He scurries through the kitchen as soon as he hears his mother turn around to rummage amongst the spices. It’s difficult now, now that he’s larger- still far too small for this large world, but too large to get around it as easily as he once had.

As easily as he and Six once had.

He quietly exits the old dog door leading to the back porch. There is no chance of freedom. The gate that surrounds his home, the gate that had held him safe so long ago, when Mama was pretty and kind and Daddy was gentle and fun, when his dog was alive and his bones weren’t cast aside and lost with the rest of them, held him prisoner now.

He can’t remember the night it had all happened- it was so long ago, and he had been so, so small- but he could vaguely remember the terror and frustration and sorrow that he had felt as his parents had changed, as the world had changed, in one altogether atrocious moment. And he had left, when he had been so little that he could scurry out of the vents in the garage, trying not to cry too loud as to be heard of the horrible sounds of his now angry, feral father chopping up their living dog, his best friend- Chewie.

Still, the yard is a temporary reprise. His mother was still here, still wicked, but his father was gone. On the workshop table in the garage sits his old, decayed hand, his old wedding band still on it. Mama had eaten him, probably; children, people, they didn’t come here often. And Mama never could quite manage to catch Ben.

He lays in the grass, hidden in case Mama peered out the window with her sickened eyes. He feels the breeze blow over him.

He should have stayed in the tower. Should have allowed Six to resign him to that fate, to spread the transmission. But he hadn’t; he had cried, he had grown angry and bitter and lost, and then, he had left.

He had wandered for a time, barely finding enough food to eat. And then, he had come home- he hadn’t intended to stay. Mama had caught him and shot at him, but ran out of shells- she had captured him, tried to chop him up like Daddy had done to Chewie, and he had escaped. He was too big to get out. He still tries to find ways around it, ways out, but Mama had seemingly wised up. There was no escape.

He should have left Six in that room. She’d have sat there in front of the music box like those swine in front of the Transmission; she would have been cooked up and eaten. He’d have managed on his own.

He sighs as he realizes how close to sleeping he is, so he scurries over to the side of the garage and digs up his little hole, lays in it, and pulls the dirt over it once more, taking time to obscure his face without preventing himself from breathing.

He’s been putting it off for so long. Weeks, months, years- time meant nothing anymore. He had prayed he could find another, safer way. But there is none. He can’t live here and rot anymore.

There is escape- if he can survive it.

The stew will last Mama a few days, and then, she will go out to hunt once more. And she’ll open the gate and she will leave-

And he will follow her. He will leave, too, and run from her. She might shoot him- she probably will. But he can’t stay here any longer.

Survival means nothing. Ben deserves more- and he will fight for it or die.


	2. How Dare You

She feels like she’s been walking for years.

She’s used to walking, of course- she’s been running for her entire life. But she’s hungry, and tired, and she has seen no one and no thing for several days- she’s lost track of it.

She’s slept once in the past week. She needs to stop, to take a break, to recuperate. She’s walking down a broken sidewalk through what she believes is called a  _ neighborhood _ , old and desecrated houses surrounding her. She surveys them all.

Most of them are empty. She could walk in and sleep peacefully with no disturbances…

But that isn’t really her style.

She looks at the few that appear to be inhabited. One of them is bustling with small children- she ignores that one entirely. Another might have children, or animals, or nomes, and she ignores that one as well. Another has someone, a monster, standing in the front yard, repeatedly clanking its monstrous head into the front door. And the last one has a woman- a monster- walking down the front stairs.

She scurries to stand beside the gate and fades into it. She’s taken many powers by now… Her camouflage isn’t perfect, but she has come across no monster able to see through it, only other children. She closes her eyes and listens for the footfalls of the monster as she slowly approaches.

There’s another set of feet- smaller ones, quieter ones. A child, she assumes, likely an older one such as herself. She decides she’ll ignore it- it will probably run off right away, anyway.

It had better not follow her.

The latch of the gate begins to open, a rusty metal that crackles and screams. It opens slowly, and the monster takes one step out- she wears an old, grimy dress, her leg old and splotched with purple and green and blue. Six looks up at her face- beyond the horrors that had stretched themselves over the faces of what had once been humans, Six can tell that she had once been pretty. In a frightening, corpse-like way, she still is. She holds an old shotgun in her hand; her eyes slowly, blankly survey the street, and she shoots a nearby crow picking at the remains of a child and heads towards them both.

The child that had been following her scurries out- around her age, it is tall and its shoulders broad, its head covered by what appears to be a thimble. It looks at the monster before glancing the other way- and immediately catches sight of Six.

Good eyes.

It stares at her for a long moment, but she ignores it, watching the monster as it walks. She vaguely notices the house inhabited by children goes loud and then silent, the lights quickly flicking off one after the other.

And then, for some reason, the thimble lunges at her.

Six dodges and snarls, surprised and angered. The monster swivels and makes a strange noise- “ _ Ben! _ ”

But the thimble ignores the monster, instead walloping Six once more. She kicks him in the leg but he doesn’t falter as he hits her in the head, knocking her backwards. Her vision blurs as she hears the monster take a shot nearby and begin to reload her weapon.

“Stop it!” Six roars as the thimble comes towards her again, grabbing her arm. “It’s going to kill us!”

“I’m going to kill you,” it growls in a deep voice, one that seems to send tingles over her skin, awakening some recollection that echoes through her. It hits her again, right in the face, and she falls.

Another shot, this one whizzing right past her head. She scrambles backwards before flinging herself to her feet, wobbling as she runs. The thimble follows her and they weave through the clutter of the street, finding cover behind the deflated tire of an old car.

And it grabs her and shakes her. She looks up at him, scowling. She grabs him back and digs her nails into his thick arms. “How dare you,” it says, its voice low and broken, full of sorrow.

And then it hugs her tight, squeezing her. She hears the monster take another two shots and let out an anguished, inhuman shriek. “Ben! Ben!  _ BEN! _ ”

“Get off of me,” sneers Six, shoving him away. He looks at her through gnarled holes stabbed angrily out, but she darts away, down past the side of the childrens’ house. The thimble follows her, but Six has bigger things to worry about- she nestles herself into the bushes, hiding.

The thimble follows her. She ignores it as they crouch there; she’ll stay there for a while, the rest of the night. She won’t bother to go back for the monster, especially not with the thimble following her. She gathers the fallen leaves and begins to situate herself something of a nest, ignoring the thimble’s expectant gaze.


	3. You

Ben watches her as she lays down upon the leaves, tugging her dirty scarf down around her eyes. He is angry and ecstatic and absolutely nothing else. His mind begs him to speak-  _ Why did you do it? How did you find me? _ \- but his voice eludes him.

She didn’t find him. He knows that somehow- the way she looked at him, probably. She doesn’t know who he was and it burns him from the inside out.

“You don’t recognize me, do you?” His voice, when it comes, is quiet and broken. If she hears him, she doesn’t respond. He doesn’t lay down for fear of her running off and leans against the broken wall of the house behind them. He pulls the thimble off of his head and sets in his lap.

For certainly not the first time in his life, he wishes that fateful fall had killed him.

She doesn’t stir for hours, until the dull and draining sun has risen. She yawns into the air and then groans, stretching in place and rolling. He’s gathered berries from the bush- he throws one at her and it breaks just a little, staining her side red.

She sits up, yanking her scarf up, and scowls at him. “Eat,” he says simply, rudely, as he takes a bite of one. She watches him for a moment as if waiting for him to drop dead… She waits until he’s on his second berry to reluctantly take a small bite of the berry he’d thrown at her.

“You’re not staying with me,” she says after a while. “You have to go.”

“Do you recognize me?”

She looks at his face with a suspicious frown. After a long moment, she speaks. “No.”

A wry smile forms on his face, dry and humorless. “I hate you,” he breathes.

“Why?”

He looks over at her, and for a moment, he thinks he’s going to attack her again, but he doesn’t. Her eye is bruised from the night before-  _ good _ . He hopes it hurts. “You’re evil. Vile. A treacherous- traitor.”

She frowns at him, unamused, before returning to her berry. “I’m lots of things. You have to be to survive.”

He laughs darkly. “We survived better together.” She grumbles, chewing slowly, before snatching another berry without so much as a word. He scowls at her as the hatred boils in his stomach, his chest, spreads through him like butter over toast. “I should have left you in that room to rot.”

She blinks, then frowns. Something spreads across her face, then, and her head whips up at him. They meet eyes- his desolate and angry, hers full of an entirely indifferent wave of remembrance. Then, casually, she takes another bite. “It’s a wonder you made it out of there.”

“You dropped me, and then you just- you just  _ left _ .”

“I’m surprised you’re still alive.”

“I could have died saving you- I should have left you there for the bullies.”

“Well, good for you… I suppose that means the Thin Man’s done for.”

“Do you have any idea what it was like?” His voice is quiet and it crackles with sorrow and hate. “To sit there and rot? To feel it growing in you- to change, to become like them? To be stuck with no way out, knowing how close you are to the point of no return, and to be able to do nothing about it- because of you? My friend? I loved you, goddamnit! And you left me!” His emotional snarl grows into a poignant scream. She’s looking up at him, and the only thing detectable behind her cold, impassive eyes is dread.

“Yes.” Her voice is quiet and matter-of-fact.

He stares at her. He wants to hit her again, but he doesn’t. A tear falls from his eye. “A monster came along,” he says, his voice strained and breathy. “And ‘saved’ me. It’s horrible, to see children butchered, to see them raised and fattened up only to end up under some monster’s knife- isn’t it?  _ Isn’t it _ ?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah…” Ben says. “But this monster… He was worse. Much, much worse.” He shoves the berries off of his lap and pulls his knees up to his chest, hugs them. He stares into the dirt, listening to Six’s gentle chewing. “And I left him there. I just… Left. Left the rest of them to their fate.”

“You did what you had to do to  _ survive _ .”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“ _ No _ .”


	4. Better Together

Six finishes eating all that she can before pushing to her feet and peeking out of the bushes. “I’m not going to waste time arguing with you.”

“Whatever,” says Mono, standing as well. She feels his eyes on her, but she ignores them. The monster is nowhere to be seen, but the house behind them is notably quieter. “We did better together.”

Finally, Six turns to look at him. “Yes, we did. Until you fell and I couldn’t waste time, risk my life, to pull off an impossible rescue.”

“You  _ dropped _ me,” Mono argues. “I want to know why.”

“I don’t know,” Six responds. “I don’t remember deciding to drop you. I don’t know if it was an accident, or a decision to save myself. All that I know is that you fell and I left.” He watches her as she gathers a few more berries, tucking them away in her piles of clothes, careful to distribute the weight intelligently.

Then, he grabs her, swivelling her towards him. She grabs him and stares up at him, face staunch. “You don’t know? You  _ don’t know _ ?”

She looks at him calmly. “No. I don’t.” She sees the desperation, the horror in her eyes. Then, despite herself, she studies his face, his long, dirty hair, his broad shoulders and the strong biceps beneath her hands. “I’m sure it was the same when you left those others to that monster.”

He bares his teeth, looking wounded, then all but flings her back in disgust. “I’m not like you,” he says, seemingly arguing with himself more than her. “I’m going to go back. I’m stronger, smarter- bigger. Not half starved and traumatized.”

“You’re going back? To the worst monster you’ve seen? For strangers you’ve never met-?”

“Yes.” She looks into his determined, fiery gaze.

And she sees him differently now. His dark eyes are the shape of tear drops, his eyelids partially covered by his brows- brows that are dark and wild. His nose is long and hooked, his jaw strong, his faint, chiseled cheekbones high. He is still dotted with birthmarks and freckles. His face has lost its boyish softness, the determined strength having given way to a rugged manliness that suited him well. And she speaks before she can consider her offer-

“I’ll go with you. Hunting monsters is… Sort of what I do.”

His brow furrows, his jaw clenches, and his eyes flood with suspicion. She knows every cell in his body is screaming not to trust her, and in all honesty, she couldn’t blame him if she tried.

And yet.

“Fine.”

“Besides,” Six remarks, if only to avoid examining  _ why _ she would offer to help him when it was something she had become so staunchly against. “We do better together.”

“If you betray me,” he says through gritted teeth. “I will find you. And you will die a much worse death than you would have had you saved me.”

His threat unsettles her, but she shrugs casually. “If you  _ can _ find me.”

Mono begins to load himself with berries just as he did, but he’s clearly not used to carrying food, so she helps him. He seems deeply uncomfortable whenever her hand touches him, his clothing, but neither of them comment. Eventually, just as she’s finishing, he speaks. “My name is Ben.”

_ Ben _ . That’s what the monster had been screaming. She looks up at him, then in the direction of the monster’s house. She recalls the mental image of her face- her eyes, her oval face, her big, round ears. And it seems to click. “Your mother,” she says softly. She can only vaguely remember what a mother is.

“Yes,” he says, his voice broken and soft. Six looks at him again, then down at the final berry she tucks into his clothing.

“Well, I suppose it’s a good thing I didn’t kill her after all.”

“She’s not my mother anymore.”

“Of course she is. She’s just… Sick.”

Mono- Ben- scoffs, seemingly sickened by the suggestion. “You think that, and yet you kill them?”

“Sick or not, they need to be stopped.” And Six needs an outlet. She, too, knows the gnawing pain of being corrupted, darkened, by this Gods-forsaken world.

Ben says nothing for a long moment. “There’s got to be a way to… Fix things.”

“Mmm,” says Rey dubiously as she begins to walk off, listening to Ben’s faint footsteps following her.

“Something started it in the first place. Something’s got to fix it.”

“I’m sure you’ll get right on that,” Six says. Then, they walk towards the sidewalk. Ben points to the right, the way that Six had come. “You remember the way?”

“No,” Ben says. “But there’s a city that way, a city I remember. You can see the place from the tops of some of the buildings.”

“A city?” Six scoffs. “You should remember how dangerous cities are.”

“I thought you’d done in your fair share of monsters?”

“I have, but-”

“Then stop complaining.”

“I’m not complaining-”

The walk to the city continues on most the same, but despite the bickering, Six is not nearly as agitated as she should be.

She decides not to examine that, either.


	5. Kill

By the time they reach the city, night is beginning to fall- which will be quite useful to them. They’ve been picking at their berries all day long, but his body is begging for meat, for vegetables, for carbs.

As horrible as it had been, at least he had eaten well at home. He would never- ever- kill someone to eat them… But they had already been dead. He’d hope someone would do the same if the situation were ever reversed. One day, of course, it will be.

It’ll probably be Six. She’ll definitely eat him. He ignores the strange and contradictory emotions that awakens in him, shoving them aside.

It doesn’t matter. He’ll be dead when that happens.

“What’s your name?” He asks suddenly.

“What?”

“Your name.”

“It’s Six. You know that.”

“No- your real name. Before all this.”

Six shrugs, looking unbothered. Ben’s jaw clenches and he frowns at the ground. He’s bothered enough for the both of them. “I’m not like you,” she says quietly. “I don’t remember- any of it. Any before, any transformation. All I remember is that room, the music box…”

“I must be older than you,” he says, thinking back to when they had met. He’d assumed they’d been the same age- had she been shorter than him? Taller? He couldn’t remember.

“Maybe you just have a better memory.”

“Yeah,” he grumbles. “You didn’t remember me.”

“I didn’t  _ recognize _ you! You look so different! Plus, you’ve got that thimble on your head.”

“You don’t.”

“I don’t what?”

“Look very different.”

“Well, there you go.”

  
  


Sneaking through the city is easy- peaceful, even- but Six is still on edge. Ben leads her confidently, his eyes alert and focused as they pop in and out of view through the eyeholes of his swaying thimble. His body, though- massive- moves elegantly, like… A lion.

She doesn’t know what a lion is, really. Some sort of… Something… Pops into her mind. Then, she shoves the trail of thought away as they come upon a remarkably tall building.

Instead of making his way into it, he leads her around the other side towards a continuous cycle of metal staircases along the side of it. “Careful,” he bids quietly.

“No shit,” she grumbles. He casts a glare at her before continuing on. Several of the floors seem occupied, but they avoid detection by any of them, crouching slowly and quietly. Ben seems to eye the metal floor as he moves, sometimes placing his step in awkward positions- regardless of not knowing why, Six follows suit, copying each step. It’s often very awkward, as his legs are much, much longer than her own.

Eventually, they make their way to the top of it. Ben motions for her to be quiet and she looks over to see a nest with a bird in it, several baby birds beneath it.

Six knows what to do from here. She slips beneath Ben’s outstretched arm and, with nothing more than the wave of her wrist, the mother bird went limp over the babies- dead. She scurried forward and grabbed it, sitting down cross-legged beside the nest to pluck the feathers off of it.

Ben, seeming a bit- frazzled- walks forward and sits beside her, scooping a baby up with surprising care. He seems to flinch as he quickly, mercifully, snaps its tiny, trail neck. One by one, he repeats the act with the others- several unhatched eggs remain in the nest as well. As Six attends to the mother bird, Ben looks around the roof until he finds what he needs to start a fire. Before very long, they have meat and eggs to eat for dinner. Ben seems to eye Six wearily as she eats, as if disturbed, but she ignores him.

Other children always stare at her when she eats. It’s nothing new.

When they’re done and the food is gone, Ben stands and peers around in all directions before finally pointing in the distance. “There,” he says, his eyes fierce. “Do you see it?”

She stands and peers in that direction, frowning. “No.”

Ben sighs and then, without warning, lifts her up effortlessly by the waist.

She’s going to  _ kill _ him.


End file.
